


Celebration

by StevetheIcecube



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles X
Genre: Fluff, Implied Relationships, Introspection, Nonbinary Character, Other, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: Three years, their clocks said. It had been three Earth years since they’d landed here on Mira, yet it felt like longer and shorter all at the same time. They supposed a battle for survival did that to you; every second was vitally important, so things felt longer, but everything rushed by in individual adrenaline-filled moments.





	Celebration

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Xenoblade X 3rd anniversary!

Three years, their clocks said. It had been three Earth years since they’d landed here on Mira, yet it felt like longer and shorter all at the same time. They supposed a battle for survival did that to you; every second was vitally important, so things felt longer, but everything rushed by in individual adrenaline-filled moments.

Three years of battling monsters almost without end. Three years not understanding what was going on at all. Because they still didn’t understand. The furthest they’d managed to get was ‘it’s something about something on this planet because no one has encountered this anywhere else’, but that was all they’d managed.

People didn’t age, because none of them had a biological form. The biological creatures on Mira did, though. The Nopon annoying children grew into Nopon annoying teenagers, and Tatsu began to vaguely resemble something in the region of what a Nopon adult looked and acted like. But they didn’t change much at all.

Lin probably found it most annoying. Still young, still looked at by some like she didn’t belong even though she was probably the most important mechanic on the entirety of Mira at this point. And then there was Elma, who, well...she aged? Maybe? But they didn’t know if that was...Elma was still keeping all of that stuff in the dark. Which didn’t help.

It was the issue of human things that always kept them apart from the others in NLA. Because they looked like a human, and they were treated like a human, but they didn’t really have a sense of what being human was. They didn’t slot into human culture in NLA because they didn’t have the same past that others shared.

They didn’t fit into going drinking with Frye, or Boze’s philosophy, or...well, anything people did for fun in NLA often just felt wrong. When they’d been woken up, they’d been given a purpose. That purpose was to retrieve the Lifehold, and they’d failed. And the other purpose was to make this a safe second home. And that wasn’t done yet.

They’d spoken to Yelv about this, of all people, because it seemed like Yelv sort of got it, in ways. Spoke about feeling like...like there was something missing. Between them and everyone else, there was some kind of gap that they didn’t understand and they felt like a robot, almost, because that was sort of all they were. They weren’t a human like the rest of them because they didn’t have the things that everyone else clung to as their humanity.

Yelv told them that it was utter nonsense. That they didn’t have to have human experiences to be human, and even if they did, then was it really worth being human at all? Was there anything special about being human?

They went away and thought about it. There wasn’t much concrete about being human that had a tangible benefit, other than the privilege of people thinking they were human. That was, until they were recognised as the weird one with the amnesia who didn’t understand what was going on when human things were happening.

They’d tried to pick up on it. But everyone they’d asked for help just said that they’d get it eventually and forcing it wouldn’t work, or that they didn’t need to fit in because they were fine just as they were. And in ways, that was comforting, because there were people who accepted them. But in other ways, it really didn’t help. Because they just felt like an outsider to a world that they would never understand.

In some ways, they were the Mira expert. They weren’t exactly sure when this had happened; they didn’t study Mira any more than other people did. In fact, surely the curators would know more than they did. But at some point in the last three years, they’d absorbed the information better than others. Their lack of preconceived ideas about how things were meant to be meant that they understood what was actually going on more readily.

It was all a mess. Because Mira was a bit of a mess; things hadn’t exactly worked out with all the different species living together, and though they’d defeated parts of the Ganglion, not everything had just gone to living happily together. And the ecosystem hadn’t exactly stopped trying to displace them, which didn’t make things any easier. Overall, things were hard and messy, and not feeling like they belonged, even though they’d been here almost as long as everyone else, didn’t help at all.

There were celebrations. Because surviving three years in a hostile environment was something to celebrate, they supposed. There wasn’t exactly much else to celebrate at this point. Everything felt like a constant struggle uphill and that wasn’t always...it wasn’t always up. Sometimes they fell back down, or they struggled against something without any meaningful conclusion or tangible benefit.

But they were still here. Numbers slowly dwindling, sure, but they were still here. They probably would die, at some point. Honestly, it was a bit of a miracle that they hadn’t already, so they should probably celebrate being alive with the rest of NLA.

But somehow...celebrating still being alive didn’t feel right to them. Maybe it was because they didn’t feel that alive. Or maybe they hated the celebration style of playing loud music and getting drunk. Actually, it was probably the latter. Which meant they could celebrate this anniversary of sorts with someone else.

-

“You want to take a walk?” Phog asked, getting up off the bench like he wasn’t even waiting for the answer to the question. Maybe he wasn’t, honestly. Phog was another enigma they hadn’t quite solved in these three years, but they felt like they’d gotten a lot closer with this one.

Phog was...the counterpoint to the fears about never fitting amongst everyone else on Mira. Not because they felt like they fit with Phog, exactly, though when their hands linked and they spent hours upon hours watching the world go round in silence it felt like it sometimes. No, it was more because Phog didn’t fit either. And that meant that not fitting didn’t mean they were alone, it just meant that they were different to the others. And different to Phog, but maybe not too different.

Phog followed them the whole time they were walking until they walked him all the way back to Starfall Basin. Because of course they came here. This hadn’t been three years ago exactly, of course, but...they never got time to themselves on the days they always felt compelled to come back here and look for answers.

“I’ve never been here before,” Phog said. Of course he hadn’t; there was nothing here, so no one really came back here anymore. There were other places to see, things to fight, samples to collect. “Where is this?”

“This is where Elma picked me up,” they replied. Coming back here, in the rare moments they did, was always strange. It felt like they were in two places at once, because the memories of being here were so strong and so confused.

“You weren’t on the White Whale?” Phog asked, and their heart sort of stopped for a moment. Had Phog known them? Had he just decided not to mention this for two and a half years? Had he not realised they had amnesia?

“Not that I know of,” they said. “I don’t remember anything before.”

“Huh,” Phog said. “That’s strange. I didn’t think anyone who woke from the pods had survived. I always presumed that everyone had always been there. I suppose that makes sense, though.”

“What makes sense?” they asked.

“The way the stars reflect in your eyes,” he said, and left it at that. They felt a smile tugging at their lips. Phog sure was something. To him, that made perfect sense. To them, well, they didn’t understand it at all, but it still sounded pretty important.

“If we head onto the cliff we might be able to see the fireworks they’re setting off at the beach,” they suggested.

“I’ve had enough of celebrations and bright, flashing lights,” Phog said. “Let’s just stay here.”

And maybe it wasn’t the flashiest anniversary, or the most celebrated. In terms of everything going on in NLA, their tiny celebration just sitting and watching the stars was nothing at all. But to them, sat on the grass hand in hand with the person who came closest to understanding their distance from everyone else, it was the best celebration of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please leave a comment to let me know :) I'm very new to writing stuff about Xenoblade X rip.


End file.
